Abstract
The most widely used measurements of mindfulness are the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). However, controversies exist regarding the application of these scales. Additionally, the neural mechanisms of dispositional mindfulness havebecome a topic of interest. In the current study, we used surface-based methodology to identify the brain regions underlying individual differences in dispositional mindfulness in a large non-clinical sampleand compared the two instruments for measuring the dispositional mindfulness. The results indicated that theMAAS scores were significantly associated with increased greymatter volumes in the right precuneus and the significant association between the precuneus and depression symptomatology was mediated by MAAS scores. Regarding the FFMQ, the Describing, Nonjudging, and Nonreactivity facets were selectively associated with the cortical volume, thickness and surface area of multiple prefrontal regions as well as the inferior parietal lobule. Importantly, Describing mediated the association between the dorsolateral PFC volume and the cognitive reappraisal strategies of emotion regulation. These resultssuggested that the MAASwere mainly associated with self-awareness, while the FFMQ facets were selectively involved in emotion regulation, attention control and self-awareness. Therefore, this study characterized the differences in inter-individual variability between the two typical measurements of dispositional mindfulnessand the correlations between those measurements and imaging analyses.
Highlights
The mediation of mindfulness has been increasingly incorporated into multiple psychotherapeutic interventions to relieve psychosomatic, psychiatric symptoms and to improve health-related quality of life[1, 2], especially over the last two decades
We explored the correlations between dispositional mindfulness and brain structures in a large sample of non-clinical young adults and compared the two instruments measuring the dispositional mindfulness
We found that Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) scores were significantly associated with greater GM volume in the right precuneus
Summary
The mediation of mindfulness has been increasingly incorporated into multiple psychotherapeutic interventions to relieve psychosomatic, psychiatric symptoms and to improve health-related quality of life[1, 2], especially over the last two decades. Mindfulness originally stems from Buddhism[3], a result of more than 2,500years of development, and can be described as a phenomenological approach oriented towards a gradual understanding of direct experience[4] Within this Buddhist perspective, mindfulness meditation is typically characterized as an attribute of open-hearted awareness of moment-to-moment perceptible experience without judging[5]. Two studies found that dispositional mindfulness, as measured by the MAAS, was associated with grey matter volume (GMV) in many regions, such as the amygdala, the caudate (related with reduced stress and negative affectivity)[27], the hippocampus, the anterior cingulate cortex, the fronto-limbic network, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the temporal-parietal junction (related to executive attention, emotion regulation, and self-referential processing)[28]. We envision that dispositional mindfulness plays a productive role in depression vulnerability and emotion regulation strategies
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